Sex Trafficking Case Set To Start
In Nashville

NASHVILLE, Tenn. March 26, 2012 (AP) — After days of selecting jurors, attorneys are set to give opening arguments on Monday in the trial of more than a dozen people accused in a sex trafficking ring run by Somali gangs that reached from Minnesota to Tennessee.

Out of the total 30 who were indicted in 2010, 15 defendants are facing a jury trial that is expected to take two to three months on charges of conspiracy to commit sexual trafficking of children by force, fraud or coercion and charges related to the sexual trafficking of two unidentified juvenile females.

The case involves young girls being forced into prostitution in Minneapolis; St. Paul; Columbus, Ohio; and Nashville and most of the defendants are from the Somali refugee populations in Minnesota and Tennessee.